Living Honestly

I drive away from the corporate tower
Brake, gas, brake–then all gas
Staying back from the speeders in front
Moving aside from the ones catching up
Another hour of life at seventy M P H

Radio says we’re sending troops
Thousands of miles away
To kill bad guys
And nothing about the good ones
To be killed living honestly

I swear for the last few miles
Even with the windows up
I can smell the trees
And the tall grass
Like I live in the country

At the kitchen table
My wife touches my hand
And we say a short prayer
The muted TV shows a hole in a school
With a caption about moderate rebels

The sun sets
Yet the evening stays warm enough
For a t-shirt and shorts
I sit on the deck looking west
Imagining time has stopped

But the Earth rolls me back
Under a deepening dusk
Under the same, first pinpoints of light
That awed children
Nine hours before

In my yard the nighthawk that swoops
Is just a bird
Chasing insects I can’t see
And the crickets with their trill
Try hard to make up
For the White Nights gone away